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Monday, December 31, 2007

3600...3599...3598...

Certainly, the most enjoyable moment of New Year’s Eve is the countdown from 11:59:50 to midnight—ten seconds of anticipation and suspense as we cork our emotions and then let them burst forth in unchecked celebration. In those ten seconds, all of our pent-up frustrations of the past year dissolve into alcoholic ecstasy of the New Year’s promise. We revel in the ten-second countdown—both roomfuls of friends and millions of anonymous people simultaneously playing out the exact same ritual—but like most festive occurrences, the moment ends all too quickly.

That’s why, every New Year’s Eve, I take a page from the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, and draw out the moment of anticipation by starting my countdown not from the final ten seconds, but from the final hour. There is nothing like beginning the New Year’s countdown at 3600 and living out the mounting drama three thousand six hundred times. Sure, I’ve received angry stares, many a Shut the fuck up!, and celebrated one or two midnights on the street after being told to leave, but commencing the moment of joyous abandon while everyone else is still making small talk about property taxes and sinus problems makes such awkwardness well worth it. Like how the great Hitchcock let his audience in on the secret and stretched nail-biting suspense across the next hour of Rope, I’ll be starting my countdown to Happy New Year! at 11:00 sharp. Care to join me?

Now let's all sing in our best Alfred Hitchcock voice:

Good evening...Should auld acquaintance be forgotand never brought to mind…